Pneuma
by The Silver Circuit
Summary: "I need you to come get me," she'd said, and never before did he think that those seven simple words would send him into such a fit of panic.
1. Part One

**PNEUMA**

The rain was deafening. It pounded relentlessly on the car's exterior and caused the narrow roads to become nearly invisible. Normally it wouldn't have been a problem. Normally he wouldn't have batted so much as an eye. But right now, his mind was so flustered and compacted with a million different scenarios, he sped down that road so fast, he was bound to spin out of control any second. It didn't matter, though. Damon wasn't worried about himself.

He was worried about her.

She seemed to be good at that… worrying him, because she sure managed to do it a lot more than he appreciated. But this time was different. It_ felt_ different. Not usually did her phone calls send him into a fit of utter panic like this. Hell, normally they didn't cause panic at all. And it wasn't even what she had said, but more of the way she said it.

"I need you to come get me."

That was all. Only seven words.

On the other end, however, her voice sounded completely and utterly exhausted, unlike anything he'd ever heard from her before. The words were fragmented and breathy and slurred together in such a way that if he didn't know better, he would have thought she was drunk. He could hear her voice echo faintly against the walls and back into the phone… she must have been in the bathroom or somewhere fairly empty. Not like that provided him any comfort. In fact, it might have made it just a little bit worse.

Although slowly, he was beginning to convince himself, that maybe she just got sick. Maybe she got in a fight with Bonnie or something and she was upset about it. Frankly, he was trying impossibly hard to be optimistic, but was quickly learning that it wasn't working out quite the way he'd planned. Regardless, he couldn't understand why she called him, of all people. Why not Stefan? What made her need him in particular? It did secretly thrill him a little bit, though, but he would never admit it.

Damon pulled into the parking lot of The Grill just as a streak of lightning flashed through the sky, illuminating the area in an instant of exuberant light, before vanishing once again. If only for a moment, it enabled him to see through the rain, and find his way to the door without a problem. If it were up to him, he would have barged right in there, zipping directly over to find her without hesitating for a moment. But, that would be reckless, and he certainly couldn't risk it.

Pushing through the doorway slowly, with whatever amount of calm he could possibly muster, he stepped inside, immediately blending in with the atmosphere like he always did. He was almost a feature in the place, as he was seen there so often, but tonight he wouldn't waltz over to the bar to "drown his sorrows". He pointedly rushed straight to the bathroom, and from the distance at which he already stood, he could see that the door was closed. Again, his mind began to take hold, causing him to automatically invent of all the worst-case-scenarios that he could. The thoughts were messing with him again, clouding his usually well-established reasoning.

Impatient, he knocked on the door once, twice.

Silence.

Panic.

Without the levelheadedness to wait another second, Damon twisted the knob, pleased to find it unlocked, and threw the door open, causing the door handle to crack against the wall before bouncing back.

"Elena…" He sighed when he saw her on the floor, curled in a heap. She seemed… alright, for the most part. There was no blood, no wounds that he could see, and it was obvious she was still alive, still breathing.

Each of those factors relieved him beyond belief.

She, upon hearing the door slam against the bathroom wall, tried feebly to pull herself deeper into the corner of the little room, but she got no further than a few short inches off the ground before giving up once again and slumping back down. In an instant he was at her side, beginning to tuck a few strands of hair behind her ear so that he could see her face. But the moment his hand came into contact with her flesh, she flinched away, and Damon promptly drew back, almost as if he'd been burned.

"Hey… It's me." He told her before he went to touch her again. It was obvious she was out of it, and maybe the best idea at this point was to go at the same pace as her evidently lagging mind.

"Damon?" Elena tried to blink her eyes open.

"Yeah."

"Sorry."

The sides of his mouth tugged up in a melancholy half-smile. She looked so small, so vulnerable, simply lying there on the ground. It made him wonder who had done this to her and the possibilities began to bubble up in his imagination again.

"What happened?" His voice was low and quiet, barely above a whisper.

"Don't feel good…" She answered, seeming to avoid his question.

"I know, sweetheart." Damon sat there for a moment in the silence and then pressed the back of his hand to her forehead. She was warm, but only a little. He quickly decided that it wasn't something he should get too concerned over. "But I need you to tell me what happened."

There was a long moment of hesitation on her part as she visibly tried to find piece the events together in order. He didn't know if it was because she was actually having trouble remembering, or if she just couldn't grab a hold of what she wanted to say long enough to tell him. "Uh… I came here…"

"Why?"

"Dunno." As if forgetting again what was on her mind, she paused for a moment, "I was talking to someone…"

"Someone you knew?"

"Yeah."

"Who?"

"I don't remember." There was a crease that made itself visible upon her brow, and it was obvious she was getting frustrated with all the questions. "But, I ordered a drink… And there was this guy… Started hitting on me." Elena struggled to create complete sentences, and it made the information come off as vague, in his eyes.

"_You_ ordered a drink?" He asked, incredulous.

"Stop interrupting." She pried her eyes open enough to shoot him annoyed glance, and he got the idea and shut up. "A soda, that's all." She made sure to answer him so he didn't have to repeat the question later and then continued on with what she was trying to say. "Anyway, this guy… didn't know who he was… don't think so, at least." She swallowed, "Rejected him… He got kinda' angry n' walked away. I went back to talk to… whoever it was. After, started to feel sick, and kinda weird… fuzzy… I came in here n' called you."

The longer she went on for, the more her voice began to slur together and the harder it became to understand. After a brief pause, however, he was able to comprehend it all, and he took a moment to put it all together.

There was a guy who was with her? Just that one little thing sent his conscious on overdrive. He was just a stranger, some random person she didn't even know. Did he do something to her? Did he drug her? Did he touch her?

That last question of his was what made all his internal conflict cease.

"Elena, that guy, did he do anything to you?" He felt a kind of fury start to rise, causing the volume of his voice to increase. "Did he come back after he left? Did he touch you?"

When his anger came to the surface, she instantly seemed to shrink back down. Never was she this timid around him, never did she outwardly come off as afraid like this… He must have done something to her, there's no way he couldn't have just left her there, if that were the case she wouldn't be like-

"No… I don't remember seeing him again." She disrupted his churning mind.

A sigh of relief pushed past his lips, "Thank God."

Running a hand over his face, Damon willed himself to calm down. Being on edge like this wasn't exactly his idea of a good night, but then again, neither was having to come and rescue Elena from the bathroom floor after being drugged, or getting sick, or whatever it was that had happened to her.

He was still curious about it all, but he didn't want to ask her many more questions.

"Do you want me to take you home, or do you want me to call Jenna or someone to come pick you up?

"You." He figured she didn't want to wait around here any longer.

"Okay, come on." She raised her arms up above her head wearily and he shrugged off his jacket, draping it around her shoulders just before he allowed her to wrap her arms around his neck and lifted her from the ground.

* * *

><p>Hmm. I've been on a roll lately, I guess. Normally it takes me months to actually write something. (Procrastination~) But now they're just flowing.<p>

Anyways, I'm pretty sure this idea has been done before, but you know, I had the muse for it and I had fun with it, so I guess that's all that matters.

Because I didn't want you guys to suffer through about five thousand words, I'm deciding to split this up into two or three chapters. Makes it easier, yeah? ^^

The title means spirit, soul, or breath, in Greek.

Excuse my rambling, and enjoy. (:


	2. Part Two

**PNEUMA**

Just like an exhausted child, Elena slid into his arms with such a beautiful amount of comfort and security, he believed that holding her like this was could make him genuinely content. A feeling he hadn't experienced in much too long. It was all simply perfect, and Damon merely stood there for a moment with her face snuggled into the crook of his neck, and her legs draped loosely around his waist.

Honestly, he longed for it to never end, and so he forced every second to feel like an eternity, knowing that there weren't often excuses in which he was able to hold her like this.

In fact, he didn't believe that there'd ever been one at all.

Or, while she was still conscious, at least.

Eventually, however, he decided that they'd better leave before the people on the outside got too suspicious of their prolonged bathroom activities. Normally, he would have enforced any thoughts that might have gone through a few wandering stranger's heads, in fact, if she was healthy he'd probably try and convince her to stay put just a bit longer, but this was not the time for thinking like that. Most certainly not the time…

Walking out among the crowd of unfamiliar faces, he could instantly feel the mocking eyes of strangers following them as they moved across the room. The sensation was unsettling at best, for he almost felt violated, which was unusual for him, but he figured it was mostly because of the looks on their faces.

Disdain.

He didn't even need to lift his glance to know.

They'd be mocking her, and he understood that. They'd think that it was alcohol that made her this way. They'd think that it was her fault she ended up like this, that she didn't respect herself…

He kept his eyes to the ground, knowing if he looked up, he'd probably snap on one of them.

The walk across the small, simple space felt like it went on forever, and when he reached the door, he paused.

"Hey, I'm gonna' pull this up over your head, alright?" He felt the need to warn her about what he was going to do before he actually moved his hand away from the back of her head. What would startle her right now was far beyond him, and he didn't need her squirming around in his arms.

"Mkay." She mumbled, her warm breath brushing along his collarbone.

Damon shifted slightly, taking the collar of the jacket that he'd previously wrapped around her shoulders, and slowly tugging it up so it covered the top of her head. She didn't seem to protest, and so with that, he pushed through the door. The rain hadn't let up at all since he'd entered the place, but at least she was covered enough to not be completely drenched in it by the time they reached the car. That was all that mattered.

Carefully, upon opening the passenger's side door, he lowered her into the empty seat.

"Where're you going…?" She questioned upon detangling herself from him.

"Just around to the driver's side door, Elena."

"Oh."

The amount of disorientation that gripped her mind was upsetting. Never had he seen her this out of it. Not once. And as much as he wished to bombard her with piles of questions to get as much information about what had happened as he possibly could, Damon decided that it could wait. It would have to.

"So you must be the guy she kept talking about."

This voice was different. Sudden. Deeper and unfamiliar. It was that unfamiliarity, though, caused him to spin around so fast, that he nearly toppled right over himself, and he glared at the new presence that stood before him.

It was a boy. He couldn't have been any older than twenty-two, and like he expected, Damon had never seen him before in his life. Curiosity instantly overwhelmed him, and he opened his mouth a few times before he actually managed to spit something out.

"Who are you?" Damon raised his eyebrows and took a step forward, as if almost challenging the stranger.

"I'm the reason you had to save your little girlfriend there."

Freeze.

"What did you just say?" His voice was thick and dripping in malice.

"You don't look as tough as she made you sound."

Right then and there, he snapped. He let it all go without a moment of hesitation, and in record speed, the kid was pinned up against the wall, Damon's fist clutching his collar, and his knuckles pressing hard into the base of his throat. He was seething. You could practically see the anger roll off his skin and he craned his neck to get his face only a few inches away from the other's.

"What the hell did you do to her?" He demanded, teeth clenched.

"She was hot and uninterested, so I slipped something in her drink." It was taking awhile, but the kid was finally starting to understand that he meant business. He was admitting what he'd done without even needing to be compelled, after all, so honestly, he mustn't be the brightest crayon in the box to start with.

"What was it?"

"Dunno."

"You're lying." Damon was losing patience quickly.

"I'm not. I swear. She should be fine by tomorrow. That's all I know."

Between them seeped a silence that only made the tension grow to a nearly unbearable extent. It was incredibly intimidating, but that's exactly what he wanted, and for the first time that evening, Damon felt as if he had everything where he wanted it.

"Did you touch her?" This was the most important this to him at the moment. He couldn't stand not knowing any longer.

"What?"

"You heard me. Did you touch her?" Suddenly, he shot out his free hand to snatch up the boy's wrist, "Did you lay either of your filthy, disgusting hands on her body?"

"I went after her, yeah, but it's not what you think. She was a tricky son of a bitch, even all drugged up. She got away from me… started screaming about how someone was going to came save her, and locked herself in the bathroom before I did any real damage."

That sent him over the edge, "You prick." Damon threw the kid to the ground and promptly picked him back up again, "I swear to God, if you ever - _ever_ - lay another finger on anyone like that again, I will make it my first priority to hunt you down myself and rip your lungs out through your throat. Do we understand each other?"

Shaking, the other remained silent.

"I said, so we understand each other?" At this point he was practically screaming.

"Y-yes."

"Damn straight." He released his shirt and pivoted away on his heel. "And don't you ever think for a second that I won't be able to find you."

In a matter of seconds, Damon found himself sitting in the car beside Elena. The adrenaline and anger were still coursing through his veins, but he forced himself to regain some kind of composure around her. She looked so peaceful sitting there, half asleep, even though he knew it was some kind of mystery drug that made her this way.

Better by tomorrow, though… That's what he'd said.

Damon just hoped it was true.

* * *

><p>There's something in my conscious that's screaming something about how this chapter can't possibly be perfect. I mean, I wrote it in like twelve hours. That's like a new record. So, make sure to point out any mistakes you can find so I can patch them up, alright? When I write quickly, even if I proofread it, I tend to overlook things.<p>

I'm kind of proud of the dialogue, though... There's a few lines where I could hear Damon's awesome little voice as I read them over. I hope that happens for you, too. D: Normally I'm terrible at keeping people in character.

Anyway, I think there will be at least one more chapter, that I'll try to get up as soon as I can...


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